Dairy farmers in the Republika Srpska rated the past year as very bad. According to the producers, production on the farms is slowly winding down and becoming unprofitable. How did milk production come to the point where a liter of curd, as a by-product, is more expensive than a liter of raw milk as the basic raw material?
A liter of whey on the market shelves has been more expensive than a liter of raw, fresh milk from the farm for a long time. Milk producers are desperate – pressured by the low purchase price and high production costs, they are forced to reduce the number of milking cows and even close farms.
“Currently, I have completely stopped milk production, with the fact that I have a milk purchase station… We still have a price of 80 pfennigs per liter, and if you go into the markets you will see the price 3-4 times more expensive, we don’t know how long it will last…”, says Milenko Nikolić, owner of the milk purchase station.
Those who continue to maintain production say that both producers and citizens are at a loss. Citizens find the price of milk in markets high, and those who produce milk fail to even cover production costs.
“A liter of milk was a brand 40 years ago, and now it is a brand. We all wonder who is taking the difference, who is the money going to, we are all in trouble, both producers and consumers. We have a cheap production, and they have an expensive product,” Radenko Arsenović, milk producer from Mala Obarska, points out for BHRT.
On the other hand, the processors point out that the price of the finished product includes additional costs, but that a significant part of the final price is also the seller’s margin. In a Bijeljina dairy, they say that they have not changed their sales prices for more than a year.
“We have a standard purchase, we have been buying milk from the same people for 20 years, in several villages in the surrounding area. The price of milk is from 80 to 90 pfennigs, depending on where…”, says Duško Zekanović, owner of the dairy.
Dairy farmers also turned to the relevant minister for a solution to the problem. They requested an increase in the premium per liter of milk from the current 25 to 28 pfennigs per liter.
“The dairy industry has not received anything for the past three years. Everyone received higher premiums from the Compensation Fund. This was the situation in the dairy industry when the budget was 75 million. We received another 100 and of those 100 we did not receive anything,” emphasizes Vladimir Usorac, president of the Association. milk producers of the RS.
For the time being, the ministry has not specified which of the requested powers will be fulfilled, and what dairies can expect in this year’s budget, but for now an investment of half a million marks has been announced for the construction of a dairy in Prnjavor.
